A Lesson Before Dying

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“The jury of twelve white men, whether they deem Jefferson a man or not, sentence him to death by electrocution (Lockhart 83)”. Jefferson would have never stood a chance in that courtroom because he was black, uneducated and he did not know any better. The fact that Jefferson was sentenced to death by electrocution for a crime he did not commit and no proof that he did commit this senseless act was pure injustice. The courts were full of white people and all they cared about was making sure that Jefferson, a black, uneducated boy, paid for Grope’s murder. “Jefferson’s defense attorney, in an attempt to gain an acquittal for his client, argues Jefferson’s innocence to an all-white jury. He reasons that Jefferson, as an African American, may be predisposed to random acts of violence, but is genetically incapable of planning a criminal act (Wardi 84)”. Jefferson could not have committed this senseless act of murder. But, no one wanted to even hear his side of the story.

Jefferson’s inescapable past got him in a position that he really did not want to be in. All he wanted people to know was how he did not commit the vicious crime that everyone believed he did. Because everyone believed that he did it, Jefferson had to pay for it. Not only did they send him to jail without hearing his side of the story, but they sentenced him to death. White people always felt like they were better than black people and had more power than black people. And, the fact that they could just sentence him to death like that proved more than anything else that white people had all the power.

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